Basic tasks in OneNote Online

With OneNote Online, you can use your web browser to create, open, view, edit, format, and share the OneNote notebooks that you store on OneDrive. If your organization or college has an Office 365 plan or SharePoint site, start using OneNote Online by creating or sharing notebooks in libraries on your site.

This article outlines some of the basic steps to help get you started with OneNote Online.

Create a new notebook

Type or write notes in the browser

OneNote Online lets you edit your cloud-based OneNote notebooks by opening them in your browser and then typing anywhere on its pages. In addition to typing and formatting text, you can also add pictures and clip art to your notes.

There’s no Save command in OneNote Online. All of your work is saved automatically and continuously. If you change your mind about something you’ve typed, added, or deleted in your notes, press Ctrl+Z (Windows) or ⌘+Z (Mac) to undo your last action.

Tabs along the left side of the screen represent pages, which are grouped into sections, to help you organize your thoughts.

If you try to type in the notebook and nothing happens, you’re probably in Reading view. Switch to Editing view: click Edit Notebook > Edit in OneNote Online.

Add links

Whenever you type text that OneNote Online recognizes as a link (also known as a hyperlink), it automatically formats it as one. For example, if you type www.microsoft.com into your notes, OneNote Online turns that into a link. In this example, clicking the link will open the Microsoft website in your browser.

You can also manually insert links into your notes by doing the following:

Select the text you want to link.

Click Insert > Link.

In the Link dialog box, type the link’s destination URL into the Address field and then click Insert.

Note To edit or remove a link, right-click it in your notes, and then click either Edit Link or Remove Link.

Draw a table

Tables are a great way to organize information in your notes. To create a table in OneNote Online, start by drawing a simple grid.

Click Insert > Table.

Move the mouse pointer over the grid to select the table size you want, and then click the left mouse button to create the table. For example, selecting a 4x6 table would create a table with 4 columns and 6 rows.

To quickly modify a table or any of its parts, right-click in any table cell, and then click the Layout tab that appears on the ribbon. The table tools you find here let you insert and remove rows and columns, select cells and cell ranges, show or hide table borders, and align table cells the way you want.

Save your notes

OneNote Online doesn’t have a Save button. That’s because you never have to save your work in OneNote like you do in other programs.

As you work in your notebooks, OneNote Online automatically saves everything for you — no matter how small or large the changes you’ve made. This frees your mind to let you think about your projects, thoughts, and ideas instead of thinking about your computer files.

If you change your mind about anything you’ve typed, added, or deleted in your notes, press Ctrl+Z (Windows) or ⌘+Z (Mac) to undo your last action.

Work together in a notebook

Working together in a notebook is a good way to brainstorm ideas or do research for a group project.

OneNote Online shows you updates as they happen, and you can see who did what on the page: Go to View > Show Authors (click it again to hide author names).

OneNote keeps the notebook in sync with everyone, even if they’re using different devices. Your colleagues can be using OneNote Online, OneNote 2010 or 2013 desktop app, or OneNote Mobile on their phone or tablet.